Holy Apostles Library

Research Assistance

Reference Desk is open Monday thru Friday 9:00 am to 4:30 pm (EST) by phone or email.

Phone – 860-632-3009
Email – [email protected]

Ask A Librarian Chat Service available 24/7.

ILL REQUEST FORM

For our ILL Request Form for Books & Journals Articles, please click here.  

* Please note: The Holy Apostles College & Seminary Library cannot borrow books from other Libraries for our Online Learning students and faculty. We ask that you visit the Interlibrary Loan Department (ILL) of your local public library for this service. Please Note: ILL Requests for journal articles are limited to five articles and three books per person per semester. Please consult Library Handbook for additional policies.

For further information, please contact the Inter-library Loan Department at [email protected] or telephone 860-632-3092.

A peer-reviewed article is a scholarly, academic paper that has been rigorously evaluated by experts in the same field (peers) before publication to ensure quality, accuracy, and validity. Found in academic journals, these articles are considered the “gold standard” for research

What is “Peer-Review”?

Peer-reviewed, or scholarly articles, are papers that describe original research studies that have been reviewed by experts before they are accepted for publication.

Why are scholarly articles useful?

• They report original research projects that have been reviewed by other experts before they are accepted for publication, so you can reasonably be assured that they contain valid information.

How do you identify scholarly or peer-reviewed articles?

• They are usually fairly lengthy – most likely at least 7-10 pages
• The authors and their credentials should be identified, at least the company or university where the author is employed
• There is usually a list of References or Works Cited at the end of the paper, listing the sources that the authors used in their research

How do you find them?
Some of the library’s databases contain scholarly articles, either exclusively or in combination with other types of articles.

Know the Difference Between Scholarly and Popular Journals/Magazines

Peer-reviewed articles are found in scholarly journals.  The checklist below can help you determine if what you are looking at is peer-reviewed or scholarly.

• Both kinds of journals and magazines can be useful sources of information.
• Popular magazines and newspapers are good for overviews, recent news, first-person accounts, and opinions about a topic.
• Scholarly journals, often called scientific or peer-reviewed journals, are good sources of actual studies or research conducted about a particular topic. They go through a process of review by experts, so the information is usually highly reliable.

Courtesy: Utah State University Library
https://libguides.usu.edu/peer-reviewed-articles
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/

Boolean logic defines logical relationships between terms in a search. The Boolean search operators are AND, OR and NOT. You can use these operators to create a very broad or very narrow search.

• AND combines search terms so that each search result contains all of the terms. For example, travel AND Europe finds articles that contain both travel and Europe.
• OR combines search terms so that each search result contains at least one of the terms. For example, college OR university finds results that contain either college or university.
• NOT excludes terms so that each search result does not contain any of the terms that follow it. For example, television NOT cable finds results that contain television but not cable.

Notes:

• When executing a search, AND takes precedence over OR.
• Your library administrator may require Boolean Operators to be capitalized (AND, OR, NOT). When this setting is enabled, the search engine will only interpret the words AND, OR, and NOT as Boolean operators when they are capitalized. Otherwise, they are treated as regular words.

Please see: How can I ensure that searches that include unintended Boolean operators will return the appropriate results? for more information.

The following table illustrates the operation of Boolean terms:

When a single Search box is displayed, you can enter search terms, and combine with AND, OR, and NOT. (For example, Roosevelt NOT Franklin.)

When Guided-Style Search boxes are displayed, you can enter search terms in each Search box, and select AND, OR, and NOT from the Boolean drop-down lists.

Each result contains all search terms. Each result contains at least one search term. Results do not contain the specified terms.

With longer search strings, you can combine many terms in a search with the AND operator, which will narrow your search results. For example, heart AND lung AND bypass AND artery will provide a more focused search than heart AND lung OR bypass OR artery.

To make even better use of Boolean operators, you can enclose search terms and their operators in parentheses to specify the order in which they are interpreted. Information within parentheses is read first, and then information outside parentheses is read next. For example, (heart OR lung) AND bypass will return different results than heart OR lung AND bypass.

Using Booleans and Parentheses

To make even better use of Boolean operators, you can use parentheses to nest query terms within other query terms.

You can enclose search terms and their operators in parentheses to specify the order in which they are interpreted. Information within parentheses is read first, then information outside parentheses is read next. For example,

When you enter (mouse OR rat) AND trap, the search engine retrieves results containing the word mouse or the word rat together with the word trap in the fields searched by default.

If there are nested parentheses, the search engine processes the innermost parenthetical expression first, then the next, and so on until the entire query has been interpreted. For example, ((mouse OR rat) AND trap) OR mousetrap

If the Boolean queries do not include parentheses, mouse OR rat AND trap NOT mousetrap, the search engine will follow an order of operations like in math where AND and NOT are considered multiplication and are processed first, followed by the OR clause which is addition. Effectively, the search engine processes mouse OR rat AND trap NOT mousetrap as though the query has parentheses in the following places: mouse OR ((rat AND trap) NOT mousetrap)

Using Booleans When Phrase Searching

When Boolean operators are contained within a phrase that is enclosed in quotation marks, the operator is treated as a stop word. When this is the case, any single word will be searched for in its place.

Print Book Catalog

Holy Apostles College and Seminary Library maintains a print book collection of more than 60,000 volumes with an emphasis on Theology, Philosophy, and the Humanities. All of our books are classified according to the Library of Congress Classification System.

Access to our Library’s digital resources is restricted to current Holy Apostles College and Seminary students, faculty, and staff.

Click here to view the Subject Chart Guide for the Online Databases

ABI Inform

The ABI Inform Collection includes international coverage and provides researchers a complete picture of companies and business trends around the world.

Academic Search Premier

This multi-disciplinary database provides full text for more than 3,100 journals, including full text for nearly 2,700 peer-reviewed titles.

ATLA Religion Database with ATLA Serials Plus   (ATLA Tutorial)

Atla Religion Database® with AtlaSerials PLUS® (Atlas PLUS®) combines the premier index to journal articles, book reviews, and collections of essays in all fields of religion with Atla’s largest collection of full-text religion and theology journals. AtlasPLUS contains more than 530 full-text titles, including all AtlaSerials® (Atlas®) titles. This database is produced by Atla, a membership association of collectors and connectors in religion and theology.

Cambridge University Press Journals

The Cambridge University Press currently publish more than 420 peer-reviewed academic journals covering subjects across the humanities, social sciences and science, technology and medicine.

CINAHL with Full Text

CINAHL® with Full Text is the world’s most comprehensive source of full text for nursing & allied health journals, providing full text for more than 610 journals indexed in CINAHL®. This authoritative file contains full text for many of the most used journals in the CINAHL index – with no embargo. Full-text coverage dates back to 1981.

Legal Info Reference Center

Providing exclusive online full text for many of the top consumer legal reference books, Legal Information Reference Center contains more than 225 full-text publications and thousands of legal forms, with more content being added on a regular basis. A majority of the full-text legal reference books are provided through Nolo, the nation’s oldest and most-respected provider of legal information for consumers and small businesses.

Library, Information Science & Technology Abstracts

Library, Information Science & Technology Abstracts (LISTA) indexes more than 560 core journals, nearly 50 priority journals, and nearly 125 selective journals; plus books, research reports and proceedings. Subject coverage includes librarianship, classification, cataloging, bibliometrics, online information retrieval, information management and more. Coverage in the database extends back as far as the mid-1960s.

National Library of Medicine

PubMed® comprises more than 37 million citations for biomedical literature from MEDLINE, life science journals, and online books. Citations may include links to full-text content from PubMed Central and publisher websites.

Philosopher’s Index Full Text

The Philosopher’s Index™, produced by the Philosopher’s Information Center, is a current and comprehensive bibliographic database covering scholarly research in all major fields of philosophy. The Philosopher’s Index with Full Text, considered the most thorough index of journal literature on the subject, features author-written abstracts covering scholarly research published in journals and books, including contributions to anthologies and book reviews. The Philosopher’s Index contains research published since 1940 including over 680 journals from more than 50 countries with content representing a variety of languages.

Referencia Latina

A comprehensive Spanish-language resource offering 49,000 encyclopedia entries, 50,000 images, 2,500 health reports, a Spanish-English dictionary and the full text of over 100 hundred reference books and dozens of general interest magazines in a broad array of subject areas. Its intuitive, theme-based Spanish-language interface is designed to make content readily accessible to Spanish speakers with limited online research experience. Daily updates ensure availability of the most current articles from a dozen prominent newspapers from 10 Latin American countries.

Religion & Philosophy Collection

Religion & Philosophy Collection™ provides extensive coverage of such topics as world religions, major denominations, biblical studies, religious history, epistemology, political philosophy, philosophy of language, moral philosophy and the history of philosophy. With more than 300 full-text journals, the Religion & Philosophy Collection is an essential tool for researchers and students of theology and philosophical studies.

researchIT CT – The CT Digital Library

researchIT CT offers free online resources as a service of the CT State Library.  Here you will find journal, magazine, and newspaper articles for Connecticut public, K12, and academic libraries and their users.

Science Reference Center

Science Reference Center is a comprehensive research database that provides easy access to a multitude of full-text science-oriented content. This database contains full text for nearly 640 science encyclopedias, reference books, periodicals, etc. Topics covered include: biology, chemistry, earth & space science, environmental science, health & medicine, history of science, life science, physics, science & society, science as inquiry, scientists, technology and wildlife.

Access to our Library’s digital resources is restricted to current Holy Apostles College and Seminary students, faculty, and staff.

eBook Collections (EBSCOhost)

A multidisciplinary eBook collection containing over 230,000 digital titles from the EBSCO eBook Academic Collection, the ResearchIT CT eBook Collections, and purchased eBooks. (Tutorial)

Access to our Library’s digital resources is restricted to current Holy Apostles College and Seminary students, faculty, and staff.

Encyclopedia Britannica Academic Edition

The largest, most authoritative encyclopedia in the world. Contains 100,000+ topical articles written by over 100 notable experts including Nobel laureates, historians, curators, and professors. Articles include primary sources, maps, photos, illustrations, statistics, websites, videos, and more.

Encyclopedia of Catholic Social Thought; Social Science; and Social Policy v.1-2

Combines theoretical work on important topics and scholarly disciplines; social science perspectives on a variety of topics; and treatment of practical policy implications that flow from applying the Catholic religious, moral, and intellectual tradition to contemporary issues. Contact [email protected] for v.3 content.

Encyclopedia of Philosophy 2nd ed. 2006 

This second edition has a truly global perspective. It contains more than 2,100 entries — including more than 450 new articles. Among the many topics covered are African, Islamic, Jewish, Russian, Chinese, and Buddhist philosophies; bioethics and biomedical ethics; art and aesthetics; epistemology; metaphysics; peace and war; social and political philosophy; the Holocaust; and feminist thought.  Additionally, the second edition also features 1,000 biographical entries on major figures in philosophical thought throughout history.

New Catholic Encyclopedia 2nd ed. 2003 (Plus all supplements)

This second edition features contributions from hundreds of scholars from all over the world, under the guidance of Catholic University of America’s Reverend Berard Marthaler, O.F.M.Conv. and Gale. Incorporating content from the five supplementary volumes to the first edition of the New Catholic Encyclopedia, this edition also features revised and new articles. Among the 12,000 signed entries in the Encyclopedia are articles on theology, philosophy, history, literary figures, saints, and musicians.

New Catholic Encyclopedia Jubilee Volume: The Wojtyla Years

This supplement focuses on the pontificate of Saint John Paul II and includes thematic essays presenting the man and his work. Headings include: The Papacy of John Paul II; Church Documents; People and Places; Institutions and Events, Saints and Blessed.

New Catholic Encyclopedia Supplement 2009: Science and the Church

This supplement features over 185 signed, peer-reviewed entries that focus on two themes: The Church and Science and the Church in the United States. Regarding the theme of the Church and Science, this supplement examines scientific and bioethical topics such as intelligent design, brain death, assisted nutrition, cloning, and reproductive technology. As pertains to the theme of the Church in the United States, this supplement highlights events and statistics, such as the local ecclesial responses to sex abuse cases and the rapid growth of ethnic populations.

New Catholic Encyclopedia Supplement 2010 : Modern History and the Church

This supplement features over 525 peer-reviewed, signed entries that focus on two themes: The Church in modern history and the new Saints and the Blessed. The timeframe of modern history runs from the year 1500 through 2009, with an emphasis on papal reactions to various events such as the American Revolution, World War II, and the War in Iraq. Also included are important themes such as Jewish-Catholic relations and the legal history of Church-State relations in the United States. Biographies of significant historical figures such as Mussolini, Stalin, Charles de Gaulle, and John F. Kennedy round out the historical coverage. The second theme incorporates 200 biographies of Catholics beatified and canonized, chiefly by Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI. The biographies of these saints and blessed frequently relate to the theme of modern history due to connections with events such as the Spanish Civil War and the anti-Catholic persecutions in Mexico during the 1920s.

New Catholic Encyclopedia Supplement 2011: Literature and the Arts

This supplement covers the areas of art, music, and literature. It features over 340 signed, peer-reviewed articles written by specialists and scholars. In addition to the focus on the arts, it includes bios of those beatified and canonized since 2010, as well as entries on other relevant current Catholic issues, events and topics, such as: The Internet and the church, Pope Benedict XVI, popular culture, sex abuse crisis, television and Catholicism, women artists, and Catholic art.

New Catholic Encyclopedia Supplement 2012-2013: Ethics and Philosophy

This supplement is dedicated to philosophical themes, with a focus on philosophy in the Western tradition. It features 700 (450 new and 250 updated/revised) signed, peer-reviewed articles that cover a wide range of topics including ethics, metaphysics, epistemology, logic, aesthetics, philosophy of literature, art, and music, political philosophy, and philosophy of law. It contains numerous articles of special interest to Catholic thought and culture covering such areas as the philosophical aspects of love, hope, wisdom, marriage, friendship, death, pain and suffering, the human person and the human soul, and the philosophy of God and religion.

Virtual Reference Library (All Gale Titles)

Search all three Gale Encyclopedia sets together: (Tutorial)
Encyclopedia of Catholic Social Thought, Social Science, and Social Policy v.1 & 2
Encyclopedia of Philosophy
New Catholic Encyclopedia plus Supplements

Yellow indicates the person does not want to share his/her thesis/paper. The asterisk * indicates that they are willing to share. Students should email Marian Farley if they would like a digital copy of a paper or thesis.

HOLY APOSTLES M.A. COLLECTION – M.A. Thesis. M.A. Professional Papers, M.A. Special Projects Thesis, M.A. Post Master’s Certificate

Holy Apostles Library Handbook

Library Mission Statement

The mission of the Holy Apostles College and Seminary Library is to support the academic and formation programs of our college and seminary. The Library is also committed to providing access to information resources that promote lifelong learning.

As a Catholic institution of higher education, we strive to preserve our Catholic heritage through carefully defined resource acquisition and collection development policies. The reference and circulating book collections reflect this mission. These collections contain more than 60,000 print volumes with an emphasis on theology, philosophy, bioethics, and the humanities. We retain unique materials in our established special collections and archives departments, including the Pope Francis Collection, the Pope Benedict XVI Collection, the Pope Saint John Paul II Bioethics Collection, the Archives of the Missionaries of the Holy Apostles, and our archives.

Library Collections

The Library subscribes to over 200 print and electronic newspapers and serial collections, as well as to specialized Catholic and theological databases and eBooks. The Library also benefits from the digital resources available through the researchIT CT database program of the Connecticut Library Network (CLN). This unique state-funded service permits our students and faculty to access electronic resources in a variety of subject areas beyond our core collections.

Housed within the Library is a computer classroom. The Library is committed to providing the technology necessary to support the intellectual and spiritual activities of our students and faculty. Continuous upgrades of our computer classroom facility enable our students to conduct research and produce reports on-site. Our wireless networked environment allows students to utilize their own laptops and portable devices to access our library resources. The Library also provides on-going reference services, as well as information and computer literacy programs, to our on-campus and distance learning communities.

As a resource center for the Magisterial documents of the Catholic faith, the Library also recognizes its value to the surrounding communities and places great care in the cultivation of resource sharing. To support this commitment, Holy Apostles Library participates in several interlibrary lending programs. Through the CLN’s ReQuest system, we share resources with over 300 participating Connecticut Libraries. As members of the American Theological Library Association (ATLA), we also enjoy reciprocal borrowing privileges with member libraries.